


collection

by pertines



Category: Original Work
Genre: Original Works - Freeform, Other, original - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-08 23:31:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 3,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pertines/pseuds/pertines
Summary: A small collection of my writing inspired by dreams, memories, anything.





	1. return

 

     The first thing in view was blood-spattered tile. All over the floor was a beautiful display of crimson, and pressed against it was the cheek of a half-conscious man. His hair was sticky with it, matted itself to his forehead, while cracked and dry drips of it had long since slipped down his temples. A pair of broken spectacles lay askew to this fellow, as if they had been stomped on by a rather unforgiving foot and tossed aside.

 

     Here lay a frozen bitterness, immortalized in stained textiles and bloodied grout. The gridlines of red spelled it all to completion: a message clearly read and forever spoken. Over and over, those words repeated themselves.

 

     The man’s fingers twitched single to themselves. He carefully roused himself, minding the glorious gash in his hair. The pain sent him into a cascade of disorient, never mind the blood; he had seen blood before many times, but here it felt much different to him. To himself he could think: _now I know what it means to see red._

 

     A blood-crusted hand happened upon those shattered frames with recoil. He threw them away from himself when he realized how useful they could be. This, too, had compromised his movement. The world was a blurry mess of dark brown in the usually sterile tile bathroom. What had such a beautiful outfitting done to deserve this?

 

     His mind delved into anger as he carefully tip-toed around the issue at hand. How would he pay for all the replacement equipment? Oh, and the fine for those uniforms, the sedatives, and the medication. Of course, all of this was of no charge to him. He had stolen it all. But now he would need more, more only for his precious beloved. And, to think of it, where was that boy?

 

     Yes, where was that boy? The boy that had been here, thrashing about, causing such a damn scene? Well, if he could stand, he would find him. If only his head didn’t hurt so much. If only the bathroom didn’t have such bright lights. That boy deserved discipline for the mess he’d created.


	2. backspace

      _Beautiful_.

 

     That was what ran through his mind as his palm cradled the nape of her neck. Long flowing hair wrapped around his wrist as he caressed the skin there. And her eyes, gazing up at him, made a breathtaking view of something excellent indeed.

 

     He muttered the word again. That it had been too long since he had indulged in such a thing. A thing like her had been out of his reach for decades, and something felt ethereal about her, for she might slip through his fingers at any moment.

 

     She was only an image. Her hair fell in curtains to frame a painted face. Still, he could not tear his eyes from that masterpiece. And she gazed back at him.

 


	3. 7963964652 - 1/4 to 1/5

And that’s just how it was.

Written in its original appearance, scrawling notes on an otherwise blank page, recorded in an otherwise blank book. Something half-thought and forgotten, eventually, ages as a way to remember those days, and becomes more valuable than gold. 

It is looked upon as some tome, but that which only holds a few words, only a few centimeters of space. If he had written more, well, it would just be too much. Those few words leave an open space for the mind to squeeze in and flex its tendrils of memory, and to court the romantic nostalgia of whatever time has long passed. 

Those words are regarded fondly. That is why today he finds himself constantly in a state of thankful bliss. Today is sculpted from the far future in a way that is romantic, for his mind only looks for ideals in any situation. He writes only to cement the elusive memory, to immortalize it in his own two hands, that he may turn it over and observe it purely, that he may relive it. With a future so uncertain, and a past so heavy with examples, what else will he do? 

The description is faithful to the times. Other mediums have a similar value. The scent of sharp lavender, how it thrills him so! And what of clean pine? He drinks it up with a fondness that suggests only the meaning tethered so closely to his own heart. Smoldering papers, burning opium. Rosemary, stripped and sectioned over ceramic. Flour and honey, fat and water boiling away. It is all his reflection. 

Music is liquid, fluid, can be felt, but not touched, and influences his actions often. But as its nature suggests, arrives only in waves; eventually, the chorus shifts, the verses morph, with a change of key, a very different melody babbles a different memory. Music is current, yet it is always coming from the past. Those songs are like a river, and with their waters they carry every granulated lesson, the thoughts, feelings, and dreams, all so sweet, to his mouth. 

Lines on a blank page are words spoken directly at men. They are never solitary lessons or memories to recollect at a later time. These lines are messengers for the past, sometimes for the future, telling stark lessons. Under a guise of bug-eyed loops and half-written codes are treacherous, delicate directives. For he who wishes to do so, he may ask. It is not advisable.


	4. the main topic

I mean, good God, I have forgotten it all. Underneath those eyes is a gaudy splash of purple, burgundy, and cream, teal, question marks. 

Those first lines. I have forgotten those, as well.

I have forgotten the lines in between, though I remember his face. 

Did you speak to me when I had my head under the pillow? Did you come to me then, in this crimson image?

I will love this time, too. I already love it. I love it so, so much.


	5. shove garden

For so long, I have wanted very much to rebuild this creation of mine. That first draft, the design was too weak. It fell apart in months. Even now I can see where it all went wrong. Nothing connected well, it leaked out constantly. But, by god, it was the most magnificent thing I’d ever created with four hands. I put my heart and soul into that thing. It showed. 

I don’t sketch plans in the barn anymore. I’m too afraid. It always falls apart. Everything is fragile, nothing has a base to it. No matter how hard I try, my work always disintegrates to a pile of garbage. 

The months following, I sat there with an open book, trying to conjure up some vision that would bring what had died back to life. You need four hands to raise the dead. Now I know that. My most glorious invention has died because I only have two hands.


	6. martingale

[ ]

My name is Mr. Martin, and I am experiencing what might be one of the most beautiful days of the year.

You see, I have been living in a bunker for the past ten years. My name is Martin. It is a pleasant day in June, the first of its kind I had experienced in a decade of solitude. The air is so crisp, and the sunshine so refreshing, the panels of sidewalk pavement smile up at me. I tip my hat to please all its weary faces and walk further down the road I follow.

In the distance, the sound of children’s laughter dances through the air. Such a pleasant sound I had not yet forgotten in my time away. A smile stuck on my face, I observe the schoolyard from across the road. The delightful innocence of play and companionship rings true in my heart. To be so fair, so young! My heart is full of not envy, but love, and I move on in my walk.

The park is just down the road by one city block. I have found a bench, upon which I perch, to consider the world around me and take respite from the afternoon sun. Hundreds of friendly faces would line the streets here every day. Today I do not see many, if any at all. 

I am Mr. Martin. Today, I am alive. Today, I get to see the sky. Today, I am a friendly face. 

Everywhere the sunlight lands, color lay. This world is so vivid, so bright. Even the birds tune rings true, though the tune I hear dancing between the groomed treetops is not much of what I remembered it being in the years of Before. The voices I hear around me are very much the same. Cheerful tones and broad smiles, polite conversations bordering the frames of every shop’s front door I pass. Some rooms even play music on their music machines; in the street, dainty feet dance to the beat of every tune I perceive. It is hard for me to imagine a place more ideal, more refreshing, more satisfying than where I find myself today. 

Of course, I soon find myself upon my destination: a small shoproom, a bottom floor that opens to the street from which I walked in. On my person I hold the key to the locked door, so I open that, too, and breathe in the polished air wafting from within. 

On the walls are tools sorted appropriately by size, price, and any minute difference at all; on the counters are items crafted carefully by hand. These are useful tools to the working man, as one may imagine, and the working man does often stop by this shop. I run this small shop, so I turn the “Closed” sign on my front door around, and I am open for business. It is 10:45 AM. My jacket hangs behind the counter. 

Observation came first. Then visits. Then occupation. I never saw any of that. A man can never trust what he hears, nor what he sees. The memory of others will always fail him, so it is best he never thinks of the past at all. Mr. Martin does not live in the past. I am Mr. Martin, and I am always in the present. A modest sliver of a thought or a doubt is all it takes to sabotage one’s image. 

I am Mr. Martin, and I do not partake in sabotage. 

The shop is in order and a friendly face braces the shaded corner of my business. Her face is crumpled up, but only delightfully so, in an imitative way. She does not know the meaning behind that business; this is but a trait she caught her second read through. Her perceptive talent is evident, thus admired by those that live in this pleasant town. 

Over the floorboards of my shop she does glide, her skirt fluttering from the summer breeze breaking the doorway as she speaks to me. A courteous and timely greeting reflects between us. 

“Oh, Mr. Martin,” she is starting, “I fear to learn the news of why you have opened shop so late today. And what of your dog? Where has your shop dog run off to, Mr. Martin?”

With some small speech I aim to assuage her concern. “My pup, my pup, my little Goldie. I’m certain she is running about town, playing with the children.”

“Of course, of course,” the miss says as she is smoothing her hair up elegantly. She is forgetting all about my lack of punctuality. “Look at this, here. I do quite like this watch band you have made. You know, Don would love this! Yes, he would.”

Names come to me easily, and I can hold a conversation here with the ease of any other companion. 

“Wanting to get something for the good man Don?” I prod. “You and Don, together so well with fine taste! A wonder you walk into my humble shop.” 

A warm smile plays her painted lips, rippling into her deep brown eyes. Ladies today have all the time to do their faces so, and their hair just as well. She is pleased by the kind words of Mr. Martin.

“He says to me, ‘Susie, Susie, why bring to our home these trinkets, when you’re the only treasure I want for!’ Oh, Don,” she sighs. A painted nail runs along a seam instilled through leather by some hand. Though she looks helplessly lost, Susie is confidently found. These are the tracks I lay. 

Mr. Martin punches holes in leather. Mr. Martin does not lay tracks.

“Go ahead, Susie, take a gift to your sweetheart Don. Be with it or without, he loves you just the same, what can be the harm?” I return her pretty smile. 

Crisp, new bills are passed to me between long and colorful claws. In this town, everyone pays well. This is all I need. Susie will be my only customer today.

When her patent leather heels no longer pace the walkway bordering my storefront, I stand from my stool behind the business counter. Susie is smart. Susie likes dogs.


	7. edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge step edge

Step, Edge.

Through that, I am fulfilled. 

So, what about it? Here I am again, I am balancing on the edge. But that is neither here nor there. What do I gain from a momentary word from below? Is it all to ease into the recognition that there is a Below at all?

Closer and closer I come every day. Every word is a step toward a dense forest of pillars. Sentences form the walls of the hallways and surround me on all four sides. A pointed finger guides me on of my own forward movement and drive. 

There have been a few people. Some of them walk with me. Some of them look and raise their hands, pointing the way. 

What has been granted to me is here only because I dared to dream. Secondary thoughts meant nothing. A question was asked, but I still have no answer. 

Perhaps it is time to get serious. I have not been walking since I delved further into the darkness, but running, sprinting. Soon I will stop. 

Edge, Step.


	8. expired

Sometimes, it feels as though nothing really happened at all.

I was walking there among the stars, enjoying the cold breeze. It’s all stale air, but nothing had ever smelled more fresh to me. Under my feet there were tiles. Every wall around me was comfortably pristine. This place had been untouched by time. When I had been there three years before, it felt exactly the same as it did in that moment, and every moment before, and every moment after.

I thought through everything I could easily forget it all. I could forget the wire grate, the full moon, the water splashing against my toes. The memories of dancing with him would fade behind a more prominent duty. Somehow, however, the promise of returning to a place where nothing ever happened made it all so much more tantalizing.

Oh, well. It’s been seven years now. Soon it will pass.


	9. to be pointed and triggered to kill

Sometimes I feel as though I am a simple being caught in an unforgiving and mindless current. My destination, far from predetermined, will be wherever the shore manages to catch me first.

Is failure inevitable? Am I sure that failure is an outcome at all?

Whatever I have built, it is a terrifying beast. She towers above me, now. What caused this change? What happened that summer? Here, I am held in the hands of Fate, willingly swept up in some tide toward great fortune or terrible catastrophe. After all, I followed the river to him.

You can drink it, you can taste it. You can even smell it, thick in the air. That is what shapes him. I took a turn away from everything I found familiar, now I am in this cave of a place, the place where the dragon sleeps. Somewhere you can feel its hot breath, hear the thunderous heartbeat in its chest.

One step closer, and I fall away from men, history, back into secrecy. In places where time stands still and the water is forever calm.


	10. tickling

Maybe I have lost sight of that path. Now I wander through thick woods, and it is possible that the thick shroud of canopy above my head blocks out every sliver of moonlight guiding my way. Where I once found comfort in the gravel beneath my feet is miles of paces away. Somewhere I fell, unexpectedly, but not by surprise. I know where I am, but going backwards is not an option, disregarding all uncertainties.

Every mistake is a twig cracking under my foot. A missed exponent here, forgot the formula there. There is ground above my head, now. The trees are long gone, and the light has faded. This underground chamber carries the stench of smoke, and its walls tower around me with a barren emptiness. No one stays here very long. In fact, hardly anyone has been here in decades. Compared to the other paths, where millions, maybe billions cross intersections and turns, this road is neglected, ignored.

We all know it exists. That’s why I’m here now. Anyone could walk to the pit and hear the beast down below, beckoning one forward with hot breath. The earth buzzes and the air tastes like metal. When you go down, you never come back up. I’m not afraid of the heat, or the smoke. I’ll get burned someday, but not yet. This is only the beginning. Rather, I am weary of his gatekeepers. Their steel spears and machined graphite clubs are always standing by, waiting. They are near every turn. They are always ready to do the work for the beast. To be taken before I can even taste that sweet reward of danger is unthinkable. There is no room for error.

Forget the mud, forget the silence. I’ll capture the thing and make it mine.


	11. honey

My eyes burn for you. 

At night, everything is calm. Maybe I've forgotten, but you always bring me back. In the dark I am never alone, and I am free to run wherever I like, to meet whoever I want. In the dark, you can't see my face. The light streaming before either of us reveals only shapes, and around us the night shifts to become anything imaginable. 

I wish you would stay with me, but you are on another plane. Maybe we could've been together, but you are gone again. The night runs away and with it my excitement fades; a new dawn has come, to take my friends away.


	12. did you ever go

The air within the train car was thick with the smell of rain. Even through the glass and metal separating its passengers from the cold, wet outside, the moisture was tangible. 

A man with a paper sack sat across from me, almost directly. His head was thrown askew from the floor, leaned upon his shoulder. He had brought his paper sack to this car long before I, for sleep was in his eyes, and dreams in his head. 

Near the front was seated a rather portly woman. Her hat caught my attention when she boarded. It was a bright pink, a ray of saturation on this dull, cold day. 

For some, travel can provide solace. The silence of others and the loudness of the machinery moving forward may give comfort to those whose tastes align with such environments. I am not a person with those tastes. 

The window to my right is splayed with raindrops. They reflect light from all around. I see a speck of pink in one. All of them are green, gray.


	13. janian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 26 2017

Today, I spent my time at a festival. The people here are soft and kind, very thoughtful, and possibly under the influence of several drugs. I have not had anything, and I’m here just to enjoy the atmosphere. Near the center square where people had flocked to lay on cloths and listen, I slipped into a very small cave. At the bottom I find a girl. She is just beautiful. She speaks to me gently, encouraging me back up the narrow entrance. “This is no place for us,” she says, “let’s return to the surface...”

So we go, shimmying up the narrow port backwards. [I remember struggling a lot and feeling claustrophobic, but in a way not realizing how dangerous this situation was. The space was extremely small, hardly wider than my shoulders.] She stays in front of me, always looking and smiling. I tell her about the music I hear. [... in front of me, as in she is below me in the passage. I have enough room to look down sometimes and see her smile.] She tells me about her favorite tunes, but I have never heard of it before. She figures I would not find it interesting. I am almost free of this space now and I protest to her I would love to listen to her favorite music. When I skew my head downward to catch another glimpse of her face, she looks solemn. I get free finally and ready myself to pull her out, as she is thin. When my arms reach into the small passage, they meet only air.

I called the police in high anxiety for the safety of my new friend. Maybe she had slipped and fallen. I scolded myself for my recklessness. How could I let her go? Would this precious girl ever walk the earth again? The police nor the park found any evidence of the girl having been there. She was just gone.


End file.
